Not quite Woody

Don and I took our lunch on a nature trail yesterday, looking for animals to shoot … photographically, of course. We tried to move along the trail quietly so as not to disturb and frighten-off our quarry. So there we were, standing on the trail, looking around us when this incredibly loud pecking erupted from above us. I was startled, to put it mildly. Looking up, we saw this lovely read-head. As near as I can tell from the various birdwatching sites on the Web, it’s a yellow-bellied sapsucker. Yes, that’s a real bird rather than a name made up to sound funny.

When it started pecking again, the forest paparazzi were out in full force as shutters clacked in continuous mode trying to capture its staccato movement. As shown here, its head is back, primed for a peck.